About Face

    I keep my blood tucked in.

    I won't be mortified¹

    by what I drive or the flaccid

    vivacity² of my last dinner party.

    I take my cue from statues posing only

    in their shoulder pads of snow： all January

    you can see them working on their granite³ tans.

    That I woke at an ungainly hour，

    stripped of the merchandise that clothed me，

    distilled⁴ to pure suchness，

    means not enough to anyone for me

    to confess.  I do not suffer

    from the excess of taste

    that spells embarrassment⁵：

    mothers who find their kids unseemly

    in their condom earrings⁶，

    girls cringing⁷ to think

    they could be frumpish as their mothers.

    Though the late nonerotic Elvis

    in his studded gut⁸ of jumpsuit

    made everybody squeamish， I admit.

    Rule one： the King must not elicit⁹ pity.

    Was the audience afraid of being tainted¹⁰

    ——this might rub off on me——

    or were they——surrendering——

    what a femme word——feeling

    solicitous——glimpsing their fragility

    in his reversible purples

    and unwholesome goldish chains？

    At least embarrassment is not an imitation.

    It's intimacy¹¹ for beginners，

    the orgasm no one cares to fake.

    I almost admire it.  I almost wrote despise.